Meeting Old Friends for the First Time
by M306117
Summary: Ever wondered what it'd be like to meet your own characters in real life, how cool it would be? Yeah, not so much.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: ****I don't own My Little Pony or Halo. They belong to Hasbro and Bungie/Microsoft/343 Industries respectively.**

Chapter One

**Unknown Location**

I knew the moment I opened my eyes that something was wrong.

For starters, I was looking up at a brilliant blue sky with the occasional fluffy cloud thrown rather than the off-white ceiling of my room, or a radiator where the paint was peeling off, or a cat either licking my face or scratching it to let me know they wanted to be let out.

Instead, I saw a wide open sky.

At first, I thought this was a dream of some kind. It wasn't the first time I'd imagined myself being somewhere that wasn't my room, though it was the first where had some measure of control and the use of my senses.

I could feel a soft cool breeze washing over me, smell a crisp fresh smell that was undoubtedly from a forest, and feel damp grass beneath me.

So, I was in a forest somewhere with no idea how I'd gotten there. I also didn't know whereabouts this forest was. But then, all I'd done since waking up was stare upwards and look at the sky. I had yet to actually sit up and look at anything besides the sky.

Which I then did.

I expected a sense of vertigo to strike me, a leftover from a bout of drinking I don't remember having, but suffered no ill effects. None of my muscles hurt, my body didn't ache, I felt fine.

I looked down at my body, checking it for any kind of injuries, and saw I was wearing woodland combats and stout looking walking shoes, neither of which were mine. For starters, the boots were the wrong brand entirely and the little patch on my combats that covered up a tiny hole was gone.

Okay. So not only was I in a forest I don't remember going to, I was also wearing clothes I didn't own.

Similarly, I was wearing a T-shirt I didn't own. It was thick and olive drab in cover, just baggy enough to not feel restrictive but tight enough that it didn't feel like a tent on me. A camouflaged jacket with nothing in the pockets lay where my head had been.

I picked it up and brushed a few blades of grass off. It looked like the Multi-Terrain Pattern being issued to squaddies after the DPM-95 was phased out. It certainly wasn't that American digital crap that was supposed to be universal. How grey could be used in wooded areas was baffling. The chocolate chip design didn't help it either.

I slipped the jacket on, finding it fitted me perfectly, and zipped it up against the breeze that had started to pick up, then decided my next move.

Around me was a clearing in a forest I didn't quite recognise. There was something about the trees, a nagging feeling in the back of my mind, but I couldn't quite place it. The trees were gnarled and wild, towering over me and somehow managing to appear threatening despite being trees.

I suppressed a shiver and looked for a path or road I could take to find a way out of this place.

I spotted one and walked down it, still trying to decide whether or not this was a dream. I'd had stranger ones but they were disjointed, half-remembered, and usually involved whatever show I'd been watching before going to bed.

There was nothing like that here. I was fully aware of what I was doing, not simply watching what was happening, and the world wasn't obscured in any way whatsoever. If this was a dream, it was damn realistic.

If it wasn't, I was in a shit load of trouble.

Before me, the road curved around a bend and beneath me, the forest floor was littered with leaves that absorbed each footfall I made and left behind no evidence I'd even stepped there. It just bounced back.

I kept walking down the road, taking in everything I could about the forest around me, trying to place it but no. Still nothing. Just vague voices at the back of my head

A trill of panic scurried along my spine. Where was I? Why was I here? Who had done this to me? How had they?

I called out, my voice breaking through an unearthly silence that had covered everything in the forest, but got no reply save for a far off animal cry.

I tried again, louder this time, but got the same reply so I stopped.

So, I was alone in an unknown forest with no idea how I'd gotten there or who could have done it, or why they would have. I didn't have any enemies, especially not ones who would or could do something like this, which left me with very little to work on.

My earlier panic came back.

Then the road straightened out and I saw the trees start to thin out, giving way to a massive clearing. Inside that, I saw two figures standing next to each other and relief flooded my mind. Then it went away as I started to wonder whether they were the people who'd dropped me here in the first place.

I slowed my pace and stopped just on the edge of the clearing, ready to bolt into the trees if the two people tried to hurt me.

Upon seeing who they were, however, I found my feet locked in place due to sheer bewilderment and shock. The reasons for this were numerous but mainly because they were fictional. Well, actually, that was the only reason.

They were from a video game. Admittedly one I'd played earlier so that might explain why they were in this dream, provided it was a dream.

If this wasn't a dream, then things weren't bad, but downright weird. How could two Spartans, fictional creations of a massive video game franchise, be standing in the middle of a clearing in a forest? It just made no sense.

In the time it had taken me to freeze in shock, both Spartans had somehow become aware of my presence and brought weapons to bear on me. My mind noted with bizarre calm that they were both battle rifles, though one was a BR55 and the other was the updated version, the BR55HB SR.

Upon seeing I was unarmed, the weapons were lowered and one of the Spartans indicated for me to come closer, a quick come here gesture with their left hand.

I wanted to remain where I was, as far away from the two impossible Spartans as I could manage, but my body had other ideas and soon I found myself marching towards them, stiff legged as my mind fought my body for control.

My mind regained full control just as I got within a dozen metres of the Spartans, upon which I got my second shock that drove the weirdness factor up several notches.

'Scott?' I said, looking at the Spartan who had gestured for me to come closer before turning to the other one, saying, 'Lisa?'

Both Spartans flinched momentarily, glancing at the other, before facing me fully.

I suddenly felt very small, despite being six foot, three inches tall. The two Spartans were easily seven foot, as was the norm for Spartans, and they towered above, just like the trees had. I swallowed nervously.

'How do you know our names?' Scott asked, cautiously, while Lisa kept her gaze on me.

I swallowed again, thinking how to explain to two armed and dangerous Spartans that they were characters I had made up for stories.

Deciding honesty was the best policy, I said, 'I... created... you?', watching them as carefully as I could.

Neither reacted, outwardly at least or as far as I could tell. By the way they both remained silent, I guessed they were trying to process the information.

I turned to look at Scott, noting his armour was the MJOLNIR Mark V from his introductory story rather than the GEN2 one from the follow up. It looked plain next to Lisa's armour, lacking the pouches on the chest, the additional plating on the right shoulder, or the trauma kit she had on her thigh, but was nonetheless very intimidating.

The black visor was especially daunting, a darkened window that let nothing in or out.

'Lieutenant Commander SPARTAN-B124,' I said, breaking the silence that had once again fallen over the forest. 'Plucked from Beta Company of the Spartan-III program right after training and placed into Grey Team. Your mother was called Beth.'

Scott flinched again then said, 'How did you know...?'

'Like I said, I created you.' I turned to Lisa. 'Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-A196, plucked from Alpha Company of the Spartan-III program to act as a solo long term operator. You lived in Elysium City, Elysium Housing Complex 112, I think. Your mum was killed by a Needler, as was your unborn brother, and your dad was killed by a Jackal.'

It was Lisa's turn to flinch in surprise.

I half expected them both to raise their weapons, demanding to know where I'd learned everything I knew. They didn't so I let out a minute breath of relief.

'What do you mean, you created us?' Lisa asked, cocking her head to one side to regard me.

'I, um, I write fan fiction,' I said, feeling a little embarrassed to be saying it aloud. 'You two are from some stories I wrote. You're the main characters in them.'

Scott and Lisa looked at each other again, not small glances but turning to look at the other full on. They turned back and subjected me to two faceless stares.

It made me shiver.

'Fan fiction?' Scott said, confused by the term.

I gave a nervous nod and said, 'Where I'm from, there's a website where people like me can post stories about TV shows and video games, adding in new characters or making up new plots. You know, write stuff that never happened.' I gestured at the Spartans. 'You two are from a video game franchise called Halo.'

I paused, then said, 'Well, you are and you aren't. The whole Spartan-III thing I didn't make up but you two, as characters, you're both from in here.' I tapped the side of my head. 'You're made up characters that don't have any official recognition in the Halo verse.'

'I don't understand,' Scott and Lisa said almost simultaneously.

'Oh, believe me, you're not the only ones,' I said as I waved at them. 'Up until today, I thought you existed only in my stories. But here you are, larger than I, shaking that belief to its core.'

'We're not real?' Lisa said.

I shook my head then shrugged. 'You're not characters from any official Halo source. I made you up, gave you both a little back story, and that was it.' I pointed at Scott. 'You got a story that crossed over with another video game called Fallout.'

Even though I couldn't see, I guessed his brow had furrowed in thought.

'Does that have a faction called the Brotherhood of Steel?' he said.

I nodded. 'Yup. That's actually what I was wondering, whether or not you'd been through Wastelandsyet.'

Scott looked at me and I said, 'It was the name of the story. Halo: Wastelands_, _the biggest story I've written so far.' I took a moment to think. 'What was the last thing you remember? Have you gotten the assault carrier yet or not?'

'I do,' Scott said. 'Or did. The last thing I can remember doing was heading to my quarters onboard to get some sleep. When I woke up, I was here.'

'Ah,' I said. 'So we're not at _Necropolis _yet.'

I got the same look again. 'The sequel to Wastelands_,' _I said. 'A crossover with Left 4 Dead_.'_

I looked to Lisa, asking her, 'What was the last thing you remember?'

'Heading to my tent in Ponyville,' she said. 'I'd just sedated Princess Twilight Sparkle after she tried to hit Fluttershy and Big Macintosh.'

Scott shifted his attention from me to Lisa while I ran through her story in my head, thinking.

'You're partway through chapter twenty of DRAGOONthen,' I said after a moment.

'What was my story called?' Lisa asked. 'And what kind of game was it crossed over with?'

I wasn't sure if she'd accepted what I'd said as truth or was just going along with for simplicities sake, but Lisa didn't seem as sceptical as I thought she might be. Scott was the same.

'Operation: DRAGOON_,' _I said. 'It wasn't a crossover with any game. I did a crossover with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. A TV show.'

I half expected to hear a snide comment come from Scott's direction but with Tara's voice, the AI I'd paired him with, but heard nothing.

'No Tara?' I asked.

Scott shook his head.

'That's the name of the mission I'm on,' Lisa said and I nodded.

'I did the same as Halo: First Strike and named the story after a military operation that takes place in it,' I said. 'Yours being a counter Insurrection operation.'

That triggered something in my mind and I took another look around the clearing, trying to spot if there was anyone else.

The Spartans did the same.

'Are you expecting anyone else?' Scott asked.

'Maybe,' I said. 'I've got other stories and they have made up characters in them. I was just checking to see if they were here as well.'

'How many?' Lisa asked.

I gave half a shrug. 'Depends on who it was that brought us all here,' I said. 'If they're only after main characters, then there's only four or so left to come. If it's every single one, we might be a bit swamped.'

There was no one else but us three, somewhat to my relief. I could have been okay with Andrew and Benny from GEMINI. I don't know how I could have handled meeting Jackson and Dawson from the Lunar Spartans. My worst traits, magnified and put into the body of a Spartan-IV, not to mention GareBare as well.

I shuddered at the thought before suddenly feeling tired, the shock of meeting two of my creations starting to wear off. I guess the adrenaline had worn off, and I looked for something to sit down on but there was nothing.

I sighed and dumped myself down on the ground.

'I really hope this is a dream,' I muttered, covering my face.

Scott and Lisa shifted uneasily on their feet. I guessed they felt uneasy, having been told they were figments of my imagination as well as being dumped in the middle of a forest.

'Got any links with SATCOM, HIGHCOM or TACCOM?' I asked, knowing the answer.

'No,' Scott said. 'Nothing.'

There was a pause then Lisa said, 'I have a link to a STARS overhead. It's a-'

'I know what it is,' I said, cutting her off. 'A stealth satellite.'

I sighed again and lay flat on my back, the possible ramifications of cutting a Spartan off midsentence lingering at the back of my mind but not quite breaking through to the forefront where they could add to the current worries of my situation.

I had now added the possibility of this being a case of insanity to the list where it joined a dream, replacing enemy plot to get back at me.

I closed my eyes, trying to get some sleep in hopes that when I woke up, I'd be back home.

Before I could doze off, Lisa said, 'There's someone else coming our way,' and my eyes shot open.

I sat up as Lisa pointed down a road I'd missed during my initial observations.

Scott had his battle rifle up and aimed its way, Lisa doing the same a few seconds.

I watched the road and saw a figure moving our way, slowly but surely, who then paused on the clearing's edge like I had done. I couldn't quite make out who or what it was, but I definitely heard what they said as it drifted over the clearing.

'Great. I'm losing my fucking mind again. Aren't I lucky?'


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: ****I don't own My Little Pony or Halo. They belong to Hasbro and Bungie/Microsoft/343 Industries respectively.**

Chapter Two

**Unknown Location**

I knew the phrase very well and, by extension, the person saying it. Mainly because they were the first character I'd ever created for a story and the one I'd put through the most shit.

That's why I suddenly felt very afraid for my general well being. This was not a guy with stable emotional control and sound mental health. He had anger issues on top of anger issues, and wasn't great at exercising self control.

I focused on the distant figure as they slowly walked closer.

'You know him?' Scott asked.

I nodded even though he had his back to me and said, 'Yeah. Yeah, I know him.'

I got to my feet, trying to decide which way would be the best direction if, or rather when, I needed to beat a hasty retreat but we were in the centre of a clearing with the trees nearly a hundred metres away. There was no way I could make it to them in time.

As they drew closer, I noted with no small amount of surprise that they weren't in the shape I expected them to be in.

'He's a little short to be a Spartan,' Lisa said, seeing the MJOLNIR clad person.

He was a little taller than me, but definitely shorter than Scott and Lisa.

I swallowed, hard, as he came a little closer then stopped.

'Scott, Lisa,' I said. 'This is Michael Fletcher. He's... he's the first character I created for a story.'

The Spartans lowered their weapons as Michael surveyed them. I was surprised to see him in his human form, not the pony one he'd gotten at the end of Desertion, but then this was proving to be anything but what I'd expected. Normality went out the window the moment I saw Scott and Lisa for the first time.

I looked at what weapon Michael had, seeing it was an MA5K he'd used so much, and briefly worried how accurate he was with it.

'You're not hallucinations, are you?' he asked, pointing a finger at Scott and Lisa. 'You're actually here?'

'We are, yes,' Scott said. 'Lieutenant Commander SPARTAN-B124. Scott.'

'Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-A196,' Lisa said. 'Lisa.'

'Trooper Michael Fletcher,' Michael said. 'I think.'

Scott and Lisa looked back at me for an explanation.

'He was a pony in the last story I wrote with him in it,' I said. 'Whoever pulled us all here must have shoved his pony mind into his human body. Human name was Michael, pony name was Terra.'

The two Spartans gave a single nod but my attention was on Michael as he stared at me, his golden visor and blue highlights making him more obvious than Scott and Lisa with their all back colouration.

'How'd you know all that?' he asked, confusion in his voice.

While I had no qualms about speaking the truth to Spartans, I was much more worried about what would happen when I told Michael I was the cause of all his mistreatment.

I laughed nervously, taking a step back, before saying, 'Well, it's kind of a long-'

I stopped myself from saying story, even though it was more or less accurate. Scott and Lisa had three stories between them, not including Four Spartans of the Post Apocalypse. Michael had six with him as the main character.

'It's complicated,' I said instead. 'You, uh, you're a figment of my imagination, a character in a series of stories I made up a while back.' I indicated Scott and Lisa. 'So are those two.'

'Bullshit,' Michael said. 'I'm not a character.'

'You are,' I said. 'Michael Fletcher, kidnapped from his home by a woman calling herself Captain Moore who was actually an alien. You were killed by the Gravemind then resurrected by the Elements of Harmony, only to find you were then tied to the planet of Equestria, and then became a Royal Guard who protected Princess Celestia and Luna on a daily basis for nearly eight years before a massive war broke out over you, during which you were fatally stabbed.

'Can't remember by what but you were then re-resurrected and turned into an immortal unicorn, suffered an emotional breakdown, and then became the lover of Princess Luna. Until, of course, you starting going crazy and fell into a six year coma, after which you awoke to find Luna had gotten married and had another kid after yours died a cot death.'

I paused briefly for breath and continued.

'After that, you broke her jaw, threatened to kill Star in front of Selena, then became a hermit in the forest for two hundred years before returning to Canterlot after finding out Luna was dying. You kissed and made up, and she fell asleep in your arms. Hooves, sorry.'

I finished and watched Michael closely. He had fallen incredibly quiet, staring straight at me, and Scott and Lisa must have sensed something was off because they began repositioning themselves so they were between me and him.

'If you weren't a character I made up, how could I know all that?' I said, holding my hands out.

'You were the reason I went through all that shit?' Michael said quietly in that tone I had only ever written about, knowing that he would either shout at me or try to pummel me. 'Why everyone alienated me, why my daughter died?'

I tensed. 'Yes.'

He tried to do both, yelling at the top of his lungs while trying to get his hands around my neck, only for Scott and Lisa to stop him, straining a little. He had augmentations on par with a Spartan-II I think, trying to recall what I'd said but I couldn't. I didn't even remember which story I'd put it in.

'YOU BASTARD!' Michael screamed at me, held in place by the Spartans. 'YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PUT ME THROUGH EVERYTHING AND FOR WHAT? FOR WHAT?'

It took me a while to realise he was actually asking a proper question, not a rhetorical one, and I scanned back through my head to the memories of when I was coming up with the plot for the Feet First series, grimacing at the whole convoluted plot line.

I shrugged. 'It sounded interesting, having a guy who lived in a land of magical ponies end up being angry at everyone, despite their attempts at making him feel welcome. Definitely more interesting than those where the character goes to learn a valuable lesson.'

'He had a crossover with My Little Pony?' Scott said to me.

'Yeah,' I said. 'Feet First into Equestria. A story I look back on and wince at.'

'I made you wince?' Michael shouted, his efforts to break free subsiding. 'Why, did you hate me? Is that why I got sent through everything?'

'No,' I said, shaking my head. 'I only wince because the whole plot thing was idiotic, and because it was my first story I ever published. My skills as a writer have improved by a lot since then.'

'Great,' Michael muttered, shoving Scott and Lisa off before walking away from them. 'I'm a guinea pig, too. Aren't I lucky?' He walked off a few paces, head hanging low, then tried to get past Scott and Lisa to get at me.

They managed to stop him. Barely.

'How could you take her away from me? I was happy. I was happy!' he shouted and I took an involuntary step backwards.

'You got back together,' I said. 'You and Luna, you got back together at the end of your final story and I left it at that.'

'Only after making my life a fucking misery for two hundred years,' Michael spat. 'I spent so much of that time either crying or screaming, I could barely face the morning, let alone the rest of the day. Have you any idea what it's like to go through that?'

'Some,' I said. 'After all, I did write it.'

'That's not the same as actually doing it,' Michael said. 'Well I went through it all, and I didn't particularly like it.' He shoved Scott and Lisa off and went away again, and they tensed in case he tried to make another move for me.

When he didn't, Scott turned to look at me.

'Is what he said true?' he asked and I shrugged.

'More or less,' I said. 'I can be a very cruel writer if I want to be. His stories were very much darker than both of yours in some regards.'

'Like?' Lisa said.

I shook my head. 'Bad stuff that almost certainly condemned me to hell.'

'They better,' Michael muttered.

I glanced at him briefly then turned back to the Spartans.

'So what's our next move?' I asked. 'Are we going to stay here or what?'

'We should find shelter, first,' Scott said, looking up at the sun. I craned my neck round too and looked at it, squinting a bit. 'It'll be dark soon and we need to find somewhere for you to sleep.'

I looked down at my body and the lack of any kind of temperature controlled armour like the others had, just combats that did a meagre job of keeping the wind out. They definitely wouldn't do well at keeping me warm at night.

'Yeah,' I said. 'That might be an idea.'

Scott nodded, turning to Lisa. 'Chief, you're on point. Keep an eye out for caves or hollows.' He looked at Michael. 'Trooper, you're rear guard. Yell if you see anything the Chief missed.'

'Since when are you in command?' Michael asked, looking at Scott.

'He outranks Lisa and I'm not arguing with him,' I said. 'That enough to put him in command for me.'

Michael glared at me. 'I take my orders from the princesses, not some asshole writer.'

'Well, the princesses aren't here,' I said. 'And this asshole writer is following the person with the most knowledge on what to do.'

'Why? Did he spend eight years going through hell?'

I stared at Michael with a flat expression. 'You do realise he's a Spartan-III, right? Scott went through at least six years intensive training, then another seven years fighting the Covenant. You went on two massive walks, fought a bunch of Diamond Dogs with plasma weapons, helped capture a town, and stood around in a throne room for most of those eight years.'

I pointed my thumb at Scott. 'He has the most experience out of us all. Well, Lisa does being an Alpha Company graduate but Scott has more experience with teams. He knows what he's doing.'

I could feel Scott look at me but my attention was focused on Michael, staring into that golden Mark VI visor.

He eventually grunted and drew his MA5K. 'Fine. He's in charge. But if I see Celestia or Luna, I'm going with them.'

'Provided we see them,' I said. 'They may not even be here.'

'We're in the Everfree Forest,' Michael said as Scott and I went to join Lisa. 'They might be.'

Lisa looked back at Michael, then at the trees. 'I thought this place looked familiar.'

'The Everfree Forest?' I repeated. 'You're sure?'

Michael shrugged. 'Maybe. I did spend the best part of a year walking through it, and then spent two hundred years festering in a feeling of inadequacy inside it. I think I'd recognise the trees.'

That explained why they only felt vaguely familiar. The Everfree Forest had barely been seen in the show and I could only dredge up scattered images inside my head.

'So which way, sir?' Lisa asked Scott.

'Check the STARS feed, see if you can spot a town or structure near or in the forest,' he said. 'We'll head that way.

Lisa nodded her head and fell silent, accessing and manipulating the feed to find something for us to head to.

As she did, Scott, Michael and I milled about. The Spartan ejected his battle rifle's magazine and checked it, visually confirming it held thirty-six rounds, while the Trooper kept giving me little glares, looking away when turned my head. I just shoved my hands in my pockets, trying to keep warm.

Why hadn't I written a story where I had some kind of armour like theirs? If not the MJOLNIR armour, then the SPI armour. Or the ODST BDUs at the very least. Why did I have to make up characters for stories rather than do a self insert?

After the longest while, Lisa began speaking again.

'Found a structure of some kind, three hundred miles in that direction.' She pointed to the south. 'Looks like a complex but it's hard to tell. The more I zoom in, the more interference I get.' Lisa shrugged. 'Must be an Alicorn in there, somewhere.'

'How can you tell?' Michael asked, and I'm not sure if it was my imagination or not but there was a hint of anticipation in his voice.

'They give off a powerful energy reading,' Lisa said. 'It interferes with the sensors in our suits and satellites, renders them useless.'

'Luna?' Michael said but Lisa shook her head.

'There's no way or telling who is in there,' she said. 'All I know is that an Alicorn is located within that building. That's it.' She shrugged. 'And given the situation we're in, there's no guarantee that if it is Luna she'll be the one you know. The one I know had a series of lovers for a short time, never anything long term.'

'Well, if it's an Alicorn, there's a chance it might be Luna,' Michael said. 'If not, it could the person who brought us all here.'

'We'll head to it,' Scott said. 'Chief, you know the way. Take point. Trooper, watch our backs.' Scott looked at me. 'You, with me.'

I nodded. 'Sure.'

Our group set off towards the southern edge of the clearing, maintaining a quick pace that I knew was probably half of what the MJOLNIR clad members could achieve, slowing themselves quite a bit to let me keep up.

I felt decidedly small next to Scott, barely reaching his shoulder, and noisy, too. Even though he wore half a ton of armour, I could only just the sound of his footstep and I was standing right to him. My boots came down with less subtly than him, cracking twigs underfoot. If we had to be stealthy, I guessed I would be the one to give us away.

I looked back at Michael, recalling his style of fighting, how it was more a case of charge head first, rifle up and firing, than use available cover. Maybe I wouldn't be the one to reveal our position.

He saw me looking back at him and bounced his rifle up and down a few times, giving me a faceless glare.

I quickly turned back to face the front as Lisa held up her fist, signalling for us to stop.

We'd only just reached the edge of the clearing and I craned my neck to see why, spotting four rucksacks on the ground.

Three of them were UNSC style rucksacks, matte black with armoured casings, while the fourth was a Bergen rucksack finished in MTP. Mine, presumably.

I glanced at the other rucksacks, seeing they had Scott, Michael and Lisa's names on them in grey script. All mine had was an envelope that I picked up and looked at.

'What does it say?' Scott asked as he went through his pack, glancing my way to see me holding the envelope.

It didn't feel too hefty, meaning there wasn't much inside. Probably just a few pages of A4.

I shrugged. 'Dunno. Let's find out.'

I opened the envelope up and pulled out a single piece of paper with a message on, printed rather than written.

'Dear M30,' I began, only to freeze when I heard Lisa bring her battle rifle to bear on me, followed in short order y Michael. The only one not to pull a gun on me was Scott. He just stood there, between me and the guns, looking at Lisa for an explanation.

'You're M30?' she asked.

'Yes?' I said, eyes locked onto the barrel of her gun. It was a surreal experience, I can tell you, to be held at gunpoint by a fictional character you created.

'What are you planning?'

For some bizarre, unknown reason, I suddenly wanted to say world domination and give a maniacal laugh, but resisted the urge, saying instead, 'Whether I should be begging for my life or not.'

'Chief, what are you doing?' Scott asked as the two guns were kept pointed at me.

'I have reason to believe that someone named M30 is planning something bad,' Lisa said. 'His name, or at least a nickname he has, is M30. He could be the one I'm after.'

'I say we shoot him,' Michael said. 'Just to be safe.'

I blanched, knowing he'd do it.

'I'm not planning anything,' I said. 'I just write fan fiction.

'Then we definitely shoot him,' Michael said. 'After what he put me through.'

Scott went from looking at Lisa to looking at Michael, saying, 'We're not shooting him for that.'

'Okay, I'll shoot him.'

I went paler but took some comfort in the fact that Scott moved to block me from Michael, using his body as cover.

Lisa, however, still had a clean shot and stepped a little closer.

'That story I'm in,' she said. 'Operation: DRAGOON. What have you got planned for it?'

'What, plot wise?' I said, getting a nod. 'Well, I kind of keep it in flux, not really sticking to a plot so much as a basic story I try to keep to. Things will change, depending on what feels more likely or better. Nothing's set in stone.'

'You're not planning to have something terrible happen, are you?'

I made a so-so gesture. 'I've already nuked Canterlot and Trottingham, blinded Pinkie Pie and Apple Bloom, and bombarded Ponyville. There's not much else I can do to top that in terms of terrible.'

'I'm sure you'll find a way to do that,' Michael muttered, lowering his gun. Lisa did the same and I breathed a sigh of relief. 'So what other horrific things have happened in your version of Equestria?'

This was directed at Lisa, not me.

She shrugged. 'Ponyville was bombed, killing half the occupants and badly wounding the survivors. Spike and a number of sailors and pirates were killed by either Innies or griffins, I'm not such which.' Lisa looked at me for clarification but I shrugged.

'Either one could have done it. I left it open because I couldn't be bothered to choose.'

Lisa nodded and continued.

'Princess Twilight Sparkle suffered severe emotional trauma then tried to hurt Fluttershy and Big Macintosh.'

'Whoa, back up,' Michael said. '_Princess _Twilight Sparkle?'

'Yeah, she got turned into an Alicorn on the show,' I said. 'It happened before I wrote your last story but I couldn't be arsed to add it in.'

'Right,' Michael said. 'So, she's not with Mac in DRAGOON?'

'Nope.' I shrugged. 'Well, she is in love with him but Fluttershy beat her to it.'

Michael nodded. 'What else?'

Lisa said, 'Princess Celestia is suffering from radiation poisoning and Princess Luna suffered third degree burns on the left side of her face, including her eye, and had both back legs crushed by a tree, requiring them to be amputated, all following the nuclear strike on Canterlot.'

I thought, _oh shit._

I saw Michael's head turn my way ever so slowly.

'Why would you do that to her?' he asked quietly. 'What do you have against Luna that makes you do stuff like that to her?'

'Nothing,' I said. 'These things just happen.'

'Bullshit,' Michael said. 'They don't happen unless you think of them.'

I went to retaliate but Scott stopped us, stepping in with a hand held up.

'Enough,' he said. 'You can argue over why things happened later but right now, we have to figure out what brought us here.' He pointed at the letter still clutched in my hand. 'Read the rest.'

'Fine,' I said. 'Dear M30. No, you are not dreaming. Yes, you are really meeting three of your characters. No, Terra is not in his pony body. Yes, he is in his human body.'

'No shit,' Michael muttered.

'Quiet,' Scott said. To me, he said, 'Continue.'

'The reason for this is because the armour mode you gave him would have made what you are about to do far too easy. The four of you are to travel to the complex Lisa has spotted with the STARS satellite which, just now, went offline.'

A swear came from the Spartan.

'He's right,' Lisa said. 'Contact was just lost.'

'Great,' I said before continuing. 'You know the direction and distance, and you have reached the first set of supplies I'm leaving you. There are enough supplies inside them to last you all two weeks. Now you may be wondering why there are week's worth of supplies there when, at a decent pace that even you, M30, can maintain for fourteen to sixteen hours a day, would take you no longer than six days to cover.

'The answer is simple: every enemy each of your three characters that are with you now will come for you the moment the sun... goes... down?' I stopped, rereading that bit a few times over. The other three tensed a little, involuntarily glancing at the sun. 'Ah.'

'Keep reading,' Scott said.

I swallowed and picked up where I'd left off.

'They will come within an hour of it going down, giving you ample time to find whatever defendable position you can ahead of a night of all out attacks. You'll get a bit of respite every now and then, maybe half an hour or so to give you a chance to scavenge whatever ammo you can, then the fun starts all over again. Yippee!'

The others looked at me so I held up the letter. 'That's what it said. I'm not changing this in any way.'

'Does anyone else think the person or being who brought us here has a few screws loose?' Michael said.

'Yes,' Scott said while Lisa nodded. 'Continue.'

'The attacks will stop around an hour before dawn, anyone or anything who's still alive will just vanish while the dead will remain, giving you a chance to get some armour and weapons, M30.'

I grimaced and Michael laughed, happy at my discomfort of having to wear a dead man's clothes.

'There will be a fresh batch of supplies for you all every hundred miles or so, give or take a few, and they'll be the only support I give you. This is, after all, not meant to be easy. And as an added incentive to make it to my complex, the one thing each of you wants the most will be here waiting. Yes, Michael, that means Luna for you. The one you know and love.'

'She's there?' Michael said.

'Apparently,' I said. 'For the Spartans, well, it's a chance to get back to doing what they've always wanted to do: exact revenge on the Covenant that killed both their families. And I don't just mean mummy and daddy, but Alpha and Beta. All six hundred Spartans. Won't that be fun?

'Now, I know Michael will be itching to get here as soon as he can and will be contemplating leaving you all behind,' I read, looking up to see the character in question take a step or two towards the tree line.

He stopped when me, Scott and Lisa looked at him.

'If he does, then none of you will ever get to that which you desire the most. It will be lost to you forever.'

'Dammit,' Michael muttered.

'Yeah,' I said. 'The same applies if any of you die, so you all will need to work together and, in particular, protect M30 because he doesn't have any armour or combat experience. He's your weak link, so toughen him up a bit to make life easier for yourselves.

'Now I'll leave you all to get ready ahead of tonight's assault. You have two hours to set up your defences, and two hours for M30 to tell you all about the villains and creatures you'll be facing. Remember, every single type of enemy each character has faced, not including Necropolis. I don't want for you, M30, to be taken out by the New Flu so no worries about Tanks.

'I'll be seeing you soon. You mysterious puppet master, anon.'

I looked at the letter for a few seconds then swore.

'What are we gonna be facing then, M30?' Michael asked. 'Griffins and shit?'

'Among other things,' I muttered. 'Lisa's enemy list is the least worrying, having only griffins and Innies. Scott comes in at number two with ghouls, Talon Company mercenaries, super mutants, legionaries, NCR troopers, Elites, Grunts, Jackals, sentry bots, and deathclaws. I would have added the infected but, like anon said, we're not drawing from Necropolis.'

'Sounds like a wonderful mix,' Michael said. 'So what makes me the one you're worried about the most?'

'Well, you've got griffins like Lisa does,' I said. 'Only they're armed with swords, not assault rifles, and then there are Diamond Dogs armed with plasma weapons but not, I hope, Ghosts, Wraiths or Locust. I have no idea how we'd take them on.'

'Anything else?' Lisa asked.

I nodded, grimly. 'Yeah. We then have changelings and cultist ponies. But they're not why I put you at the top, Mike. You're number one because of the overall bad guy of the first Feet First story.

'We'll have the Flood coming after us.'


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: ****I don't own My Little Pony or Halo. They belong to Hasbro and Bungie/Microsoft/343 Industries respectively.**

Chapter Three

**The Everfree Forest**

Night came too quickly, the sun setting with an almost impossible speed, and our group of four wasted little time in finding a suitable defendable location.

It was in a slight depression at the bottom of a steep cliff, deep enough for all four of us to crouch down and be shielded from view but shallow enough that it wasn't a mad scramble up the side in case we needed to get out quickly. There were a few rocks nearby that the MJOLNIR wearing members hefted and place d along the brim, giving them more cover, while I hauled their packs into the base of the depression, unable to so much as shift the rocks an inch.

I looked up, nervously, at the sheer cliff face above once our position was as fortified as it was going to get.

'Is it really the best place to set up?' I asked.

'Yes,' Scott said. 'There are no loose rocks up there and we have a sort of lip above us.' He pointed to a jutting edge of rock, maybe a metre wide. 'If any rocks fall, they'll glance off that and land in front of us.'

I said oh and went back to trying to make myself as flat as possible, Scott's pistol in hand. He'd given it to me, along with three spare magazines, in case someone or something made it past their defences and I needed to protect myself. He had shown me the magazine release button, the safety, and coaxed me through using both a few times.

I wasn't the best with it, and no doubt in the heat of the moment I'd fuck up somehow, but at least I was armed.

The hour anon had promised was almost up and off in the distance, we could hear the steady beat of marching feet.

Scott began issuing orders.

'Chief, you and I will start engaging threats as and when they appear. Set your rifle to single shot, conserve ammo.'

'Yes, sir,' Lisa said.

'And me?' Michael said.

'You're close protection,' Scott said. 'Whatever makes it past our initial field of fire, I want you to engage. Short controlled bursts.'

'Got it,' Michael said.

Scott glanced over his shoulder at me.

'M30, just... just keep your head down. You're no use with just a pistol and no armour.'

I nodded. 'Trust me, I'm not going to raise my head unless absolutely necessary.

It struck me as odd that all three had started referring to me as M30, not even bothering to ask my real name, but I was okay with that. It was the first three digits of my one size fits all username and as good as anything to call me.

'Heads up,' Lisa said a scant second before an arrow sailed into the depression and bounced off the cliff wall, glancing off and embedding itself in the soft forest floor.

'Who uses arrows?' Scott asked.

'Griffins,' I said, looking at the arrow. 'Mind of the Grave cultists. But I don't think they're the ones firing at us.'

'Why not?' Lisa said.

'There's a message on the shaft.'

I plucked a rolled up piece of parchment from the arrow, unfurling it to read the contents.

'Dear M30 and co,' I read. 'I'm surprised you didn't do a Holy Grail reference and say 'message for you, sir' while holding it out to Scott, not to mention a little disappointed.'

'Does anon somehow know what's going to happen before it happens?' Michael asked, looking at me.

I looked back at the message.

'Apparently not,' I said, continuing to read. 'No, Michael. I do not. Where's the fun in calling three great warriors and in idiot to act for my entertainment if I know how things unfurl? Rather, this message changes its content depending on what M30 does before and during his reading out of it. So, no. I do not have the power of precognition, nor do I posses a time machine. I do what everyone else does and simply wait to watch things unfold.

'I do however have the ability to enchant texts and shit. Yay me.'

Michael snorted with laughter. 'I'm starting to like this guy.'

'I'm not,' I said.

'Oh, so what if you don't like me?' I read, blinking to see the text change before my eyes. I paused then continued. 'This whole thing is for my amusement, not yours, and until you get to my complex you'll have to live with it. Now, onto tonight's activities.

'You'll have a starter of Michael's griffins, armed with their usual armaments, followed up with a main of Scott's Talon Company with a side of Caesar's Legion. You can wash this all down with a cup of Lisa's griffins before we have dessert: all previous courses coming at once. You'll get a little respite before dessert, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, then it'll be a long hard slog through to the hour before dawn.'

'How long to dawn?' Scott asked Michael, the one with the most experience in the Everfree Forest.

He shrugged. 'Hard to tell. Looks like it's the middle of summer, possibly the end, so it could be as much as seven hours, maybe six and a half, so we'll have a four hour battle on our hands, buts that's only if we're in my Equestria, not the Chief's.'

It was Lisa's turn to shrug. 'I never spent much time in the Everfree Forest so I don't know the day/night cycle too well.'

'Great,' I said. 'So nobody really knows?'

All three shook their heads.

'Keep reading,' Scott said.

'Once dawn is an hour away, the fighting will stop and you can go out and scavenge what you can,' I said. 'Armour, weapons, supplies, whatever you can to arm the dweeb reading... this.' I sighed. 'I hate anon.'

'I'm really starting to like him,' Michael said.

I glared at him and kept reading.

'And before you ask, no. I won't tell you what you'll be facing at the start of each night. This is a freebie because it's the first night and I'm feeling nice. From now on, it can be anything. Anything at all. So go team, have fun, and remember: some things in life are bad. They can really make you bad.

'Other things just make you swear and curse. When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble. Give a whistle. And this'll help things turn out for the best. And...'

'And... what?' Scott asked.

I sighed, saying in a sing song voice with a forced grin on my face, 'Always look on the bright side of life!' I crumpled the paper up and threw it away. 'Anon then goes on to list the entire lyrics to Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, followed by a smiley face.'

'At least he's cheery,' Michael said. 'Almost makes up for the fact we're here.'

'Just keep an eye out for something trying to kill us,' I muttered, tossing the arrow away as well.

Michael laughed.

'So what weaponry should we expect?' Scott asked as the sound of marching feet drew closer, turning into a steady beat-beat that cut through the forest air.

'Give me a moment,' I said, thinking. 'Lisa's griffins may or may not have assault rifles and grenades, while Michael's have swords and other assorted medieval weapons. With you, Talon Company and Caesar's Legion will have rifles and knives.' I thought for a few seconds more. 'And armour.'

Michael laughed again as I shuddered, the thought of wearing armour a man had died in not filling me with warm, happy thoughts.

'Remember, short controlled bursts, Trooper,' Scott said. 'A196 and I will engage at range, you tackle the closer ones. Do not let them past you to M30.'

'Because we wouldn't want anything to happen to our precious asshole,' he muttered.

I glared at Michael but said nothing, keeping myself flat against the ground and hidden behind the three armoured rucksacks and my unarmoured one, a further line of defence in case something were to happen.

'Contact,' Lisa said. 'Eyes on enemy troops, three hundred metres out.'

'Weapons free,' Scott said. 'Hit them.'

I couldn't really see anything from my position, crouched behind three rucksacks and looking up at the three soldiers. The only definitive thing I could make out was the overhead trees that swayed slightly in the breeze, the wind sounding like it was whispering. Before them was the darkened outlines of the Spartans and Michael.

Scott was on the left, Lisa on the right, and Michael in the middle, somewhat more visible thanks to the blue highlights on his armour, but not by much. They were spread out evenly on the lip of the depression, crouched behind rocks as heavy as me, weapons trained out.

A decent defensive position so long as the rocks above us didn't suddenly fall down and crush them all.

It was Lisa who fired first, a muted single cough from her battle rifle with the briefest flash from the muzzle, followed by a much louder report from Scott's unsuppressed rifle. Two brass casings flew from the ejection ports and clinked off the cliff wall, bouncing back down at me.

I guessed two unfortunate griffins had bought it, followed by more and more as the Spartans began firing with some regularity, slowly but surely covering the space in front of me with brass and, eventually, two empty magazines.

That struck me as worrying, seeing as they'd taken less than four minutes to kill, at most, seventy-two griffins and we were only just starting off.

They reloaded with bewildering speed, hands a literal blur, and the barrage of single shots resumed with only the briefest of lulls.

Then Michael began firing, picking off the targets that had slipped past Scott and Lisa, adding his brass to the pile. Again, like with Lisa, his rifle was oddly muted in its firing. It wasn't as quiet as you'd expect from a silenced weapon, a fault I place on Hollywood, but a lot quieter than Scott's battle rifle as it dispatched griffins with, I assume, lethal precision.

'Archer,' Scott warned as an arrow sailed into our pit, joining anon's in looking out of place next to the modern bullet casings.

'You don't say,' I yelled over the sounds of gunfire, barked orders from the griffins, and general din of battle. I never realised how noisy a battle could be but then, I only had, up until now, video games and movies to go on. Hardly reliable source material.

'More targets in back. Eleven o'clock, range two-fifty.'

'Acknowledged, sir. Engaging.'

'More incoming, centre. Trooper, grenades. In the middle. Break them up.'

'You got it. Hey, assholes! Present!'

I risked a glance, seeing Michael prime and toss a frag grenade over the rocks and heard it detonate a few seconds later. Screams followed, joined by the very faint sound of body parts impacting on the rocks protecting the three.

Something landed right next to me, something that landed with a splat, and I could just make out in the darkness that was broken up by the strobe-like muzzle flash that it was half of what remained of a griffin's head, blood and arteries hanging from the neck.

I retched and tried to shove it away, taking pains to not touch the bloody parts, but felt my fingertips accidentally brush against what remained of the exposed brains, retching again.

'God, I hate anon,' I whispered, covering my head as Michael tossed another grenade and blew another bunch of griffins apart.

'Could really do with Shelia,' Michael said amidst the battle. 'She'd be able to cope with this, easy.'

'And Shelia is?' Lisa asked.

'Scorpion tank,' Michael said. 'Found her during the first Equestrian-Griffin war. Used her to great effect afterwards.'

'Why Shelia?' Scott asked as another frag was tossed.

'Red versus Blue,' Michael said. 'I think. My memory is a little hazy from before I was dropped on Equestria. It's just sort of... gone.' He went quiet for a short moment and for some reason, I guessed he shook his head. I wasn't about to raise my head and look as more arrows sailed overhead. 'Anyway. It was a show or something and Shelia was a sentient tank on it. I just sort of named her that.'

That's true, I thought to myself, remembering back to whichever story that was from. Resurrection, I think. Found the tank, called it Shelia, one of the more obvious references in those stories. Especially compared to some others.

I stopped for a moment, dwelling on the fact that not two metres from me was a raging gun battle and a griffin's head was only two feet away, and I was thinking back to the references I'd made in a shitty series of fics.

Maybe it was a coping mechanism, taking my mind off the lethal event taking place. If it was, I happily embraced.

Okay, references. Well, in the first fic, there was Fallout, Scrubs, Megas XLR...

I hit a brick wall, literally unable to think of what else I'd put in there. I knew in the next one, Resurrection, there was at least one reference to Life of Brian and another to MASH alongside Red versus Blue. Grudges and Expedition, Desertion too, all drew blanks.

Had I purposefully blocked the fics out? Or was the barrage of rifle fire too distracting?

Judging by Scott's further warnings, either Talon Company or the Legion had shown up and there were now more than three rifles on the battlefield.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye Michael's shields shimmer gold for a second, followed by Scott and Lisa's, as more gunfire tore through the air.

A bullet ricocheted off the cliff behind us all and I felt some stone chips fall on me.

'Keep down,' Lisa warned.

'No shit!' I said, making sure to really cover my head.

I was well aware that the presence of my arms would provide no kind of meaningful protection against a ricochet whatsoever but it was more psychological protection I wanted than physical at that point. I had something over my head, I was lying down behind a ton and a half of MJOLNIR and several rocks, and I was so far unharmed. I felt safe.

Scott yelling 'Grenade!' promptly shattered that feeling of safety.

I don't know if the explosive device landed anywhere near us or not, but judging by the fact I felt the earth shake as something made my teeth rattle inside my head, I guessed it was close. Very close.

'Chief, shift fire to nearest enemies,' Scott ordered once the sound of the blast died away. 'Push them back.'

Lisa made no retaliatory comment or acknowledgement, and I guessed she flashed a green light Scott's way. I really hated having no armour like they did. And I hated anon.

In fact, I hated my whole current situation. It was fucked up.

I was questioning my sanity due to the presence of Scott, Lisa, and Michael, the presence of griffins, being in the Everfree Forest, and being mocked by an as yet unseen person or creature with the ability to pluck myself and three fictional characters of my own creation and pit them against fictional enemies, all the while having my livelihood threatened by not just the fictional enemies, but one of my very own creations!

'Fuck anon!' I shouted several times. 'Fuck him and his letter changing ass!'

'Yay anon!' Michael shouted back. 'Yay him and his ability to piss M30 off!'

'Fuck you too, Michael!' I yelled. 'You self centred asshole!'

He looked back at me, briefly.

'You sure you want to be saying that?' he said. 'Because I will hurt you, you know. I don't need much to kick off.'

'I don't fucking care,' I said. 'I'm in the middle of a forest with things trying to kill me. Pissing you off is kind of low on the threat spectrum.'

'Focus,' Scott ordered, his shields glowing from a strike. 'We're not out of this yet.'

I muttered something under my breath, as did Michael, and we went back to our respective positions. Me with my head buried in the ground, him shooting at the enemies anon was throwing our way for amusement.

Life sucked.

**The Everfree Forest**

Dawn came slowly, ever so slowly, our first sign it was close at hand being the sudden disappearance of all living enemies. And I mean sudden.

It was like a switch had been thrown, everything alive just vanishing with a pop, leaving behind the dead.

I crawled, bleary eyed, from our hole after Scott and Lisa. I probably managed to get an hour of fitful sleep, constantly waking up at every explosion or barked order, leaving me irate.

Michael was a little better but was still short with everyone, climbing out of the hole first after snatching his rucksack up, glaring at me.

I sighed, yawned, then stretched while Scott trawled through the battlefield for an intact member of Talon Company as Lisa did the same, but searching for an MA5 assault rifle that her griffins had wielded late into battle instead. They had been the source of many of the night's grenades, too.

My stomach growled and I sighed again, feeling weariness creep up on me. I needed food, and/or sleep. At the very least, caffeine.

I dumped myself on a rock far from the body strewn battlefield and began rooting around in my Bergen, looking for the stove and MRE I'd seen in it yesterday.

It came with some effort and, after staring somewhat blankly at the controls, I got it lit and an MRE bubbling away soon enough.

'How long was that night?' I asked aloud, seeing Scott and Lisa continuing their ghoulish rounds.

'Around five hours, not including the hour we had before and after the fight,' Michael said from directly behind me, making me jump and spill the pouch of food I'd just opened.

The contents went all over my legs, scalding hot from having just boiled, and I unleashed a foul mouthed string of obscenities at Michael, at the food, and at anon as well.

'Bastard,' I growled at Michael, wiping the food off and trying to ignore the pain.

He shrugged. 'Considering you killed me twice, put me through years upon years of mental anguish, and made my life a literal living hell, I'd say you're the bastard here. Ruining your breakfast is pretty tame by comparison.'

I just glowered at him and reached for another bag when Scott began dragging a corpse over.

'Found one around your size,' he said, dumping the body at my feet. 'Killed by a headshot, not caught in a grenade blast. Armour's in decent shape. Should do for you.'

I just stared at the body, suddenly not feeling hungry any more. It was the first dead human I'd seen before, and the fact that a single red eye sat between his two, lifeless normal ones did little to help matters.

'You heard him,' Michael said. 'Guy has armour you need. Get stripping. Him and you.'

Lisa came over and placed an MA5 assault rifle by my feet, along with a dozen magazines for it.

At least not everything I was getting was bad.

Then I saw the blood spatter on the trigger and sighed.

Well, not _as _bad.

I shuddered and moved, kneeling by the dead mercenary to begin the process of removing his armour and putting it on.

I retched a little, feeling the guy's clammy skin, but pressed on.

'I hate anon.'


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: ****I don't own My Little Pony or Halo. They belong to Hasbro and Bungie/Microsoft/343 Industries respectively.**

Chapter Four

**The Everfree Forest**

The first few days were hell on us. Well, on some of us.

Okay, it was hell on me.

I wasn't at all prepared for a night full of fighting followed by a day full of walking, carrying around what felt like half my weight on my back, a heavy rifle in my arms, and all the while wearing heavy armour that a guy had died in that was also shitty at letting heat escape meaning I was thoroughly soaked in sweat within half an hour.

About the only upside was that my hair was short enough so that it stayed clear of my eyes and only clung to the upper half of my forehead.

I would glare at the other three comfortable in their temperature controlled, strength augmenting armour, in particular Michael who wasn't even trying to hide his contempt for me.

Okay, I was _only_ glaring at Michael.

He had made no attempt at hiding his disdain for me, glaring my way at every opportunity and laughing at every mistake or hardship I endured, particularly during weapons training.

Every time I cocked up releasing the magazine, or missed a target barely fifty metres away, he'd be there laughing a little, only to stop when Scott glared at him.

I didn't quite know why the Spartan had silently sided with me. I was a poor shot, thanks in part to the lack of a physical sight on the MA5, and slowed everyone down considerable. On a good day on flat, open terrain with nothing on my back, I could probably average four miles an hour.

With everything on, I was barely managing two. The forest floor didn't help matters.

If anything, I was a burden and Scott, being a professional soldier, should have held some similar contempt for me and my lack of skill, but no. He stayed by my side, occasionally glancing down at me to check I was okay, calling for a rest stop whenever he sensed I was struggling.

I put it down to him seeing me as the weak link, that keeping an eye on me was the best hope we had to make it to anon's complex. If I died, they were all fucked.

Lisa kept her distance, staying on the fringes whenever we stopped and saying little. I recalled from DRAGOON that she considered herself as the unsociable even by Spartan standards and preferred working by herself. Being put into a team like ours was probably a strange experience for her.

One other Spartan, a faux-Spartan with anger issues, and me.

'Yeah,' I said to myself as we walked through the forest. 'It's gonna be strange.'

'What is?' Scott asked, looking down at me.

'Nothing,' I said, shaking my head. 'Just musing on our situation.'

'Oh,' Scott said and kept walking as I yawned.

We would stop around three hours before sunset, setting up defences and grabbing whatever sleep we could, then waking up a few minutes before the attacks began. Once the attack stopped and everything alive vanished, I went back to sleep for a few more hours. Literally dropping where I lay.

All in all, I was getting five, maybe six hours sleep a day and that was broken into two three-hour sessions separated by periods of intense activity.

It had only been four days and already I felt like shit. We'd barely covered thirty miles, just over a tenth of our total trip, because of my slowness and the terrain.

I did not want to imagine what I'd be like at the end of it all. If I made it at all.

Scott looked down at me again, a quick turn of his head, then went back to looking ahead. He repeated the first half of the motion, keeping his visor pointed in my general direction, and spoke.

'What made you write me?' he asked, breaking the silence and briefly glancing back at Michael as he brought up the rear some distance away. 'Why did you write a- what was it? Fallout crossover?'

I nodded, wearily, and said, 'The first stories I wrote, barring one TwiMac, were all Halo/MLP stories that weren't exactly Halo stories. About the only thing Halo related was the armour and weapons Michael used. They never had that many followers and I felt stupid writing them. The whole plot was stupid.

'A Brony, kidnapped from his home, gets turned into an ODST by one alien race to defend another race who just happen to be the very ponies he watches and reads FanFics about.' I sighed. 'There was some construed reasoning why that was, something about the aliens who kidnapped him in the first place secretly controlling Earth's media to find suitable people.'

The Spartan kept quiet and I suddenly found the whole faceless nature of the helmets frustrating. I didn't know if he was cocking an eyebrow in disbelief, laughing at me and my idea, or just waiting for me to go on.

I sighed and did.

'With you, I tried to make a story that you could argue _was _in the Halo and Fallout cannon. I gave it a more believable plot, kind of, and did a load of research into both universe's established canon and capabilities.' I gestured at the rifle in my hands, then at the armour I wore. 'The Halo verse was much easier because it has actual books to draw material from that give actual figures and stuff. Fallout had jack shit in comparison.'

'Like?' Scott said.

'Technology,' I said. 'Most of the research I did on the Fallout side of things came from reading up on actual things like how much energy a 5.56mm round has compared to a 7.62mm. I think it was below half. Then there was the body armour Talon Company wore. All the Fallout Wiki said was that it had ceramics and polymers, mentioning absolutely nothing about what kind of protection it offered.'

My hands clenched into fists, my annoyance from doing research then turning into frustration now, and I silently cured anon for the umpteenth time.

'The armour from when I come from has, like, six grades that tell you what kind of calibre they can stop,' I said once my mental state was somewhat calmer. 'The top one can stop a .30 calibre bullet with slightly more hitting power than a 7.62 like this fires.' I gestured at the rifle in my arms.

'Then we get to the assumption part of my research.'

Overhead, a flock of birds took flight as we drew closer and we all instinctively turned their way, all but me training weapons on them.

We were walking on a few seconds later.

'What kind of assumptions?' Scott asked.

I shrugged. 'Both the Halo Verse and the Fallout Verse have diverged timelines from reality, right? They roughly follow human history but then there are things that go wrong. Now I used a single event that happened in both timelines as a rough indicator for how much their technology progressed.

'I used 1945 as my launch point because in both timelines, America dropped nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki so I could crawl forward along that to compare things.'

'Must have been a slow pace,' Michael muttered behind us, absently kicking a rock my way. It missed and hit Scott instead, the Spartan ignoring it.

'That's where people started disagreeing with Wastelands.'

Scott moved his head an inch further round, asking, 'Disagreeing how?'

I shrugged again, my sleep deprived mind struggling to think back to the two hundred odd reviews and the select few that had raised objections.

'Stuff like the ability of the ODST's body armour being able to shrug off rifle fire from Talon Company. I don't think they were taking into account the technology gap,' I said. 'If we did assume 1945 was the last point where your world and Hullum's agreed on, your technological advancement lasted somewhere around...' I trailed off, doing the math.

'Something like seven hundred years, during which time the UNSC had plenty of time to put billions of credits or whatever the money system is into armour research so they could combat the simultaneous advancement of weapons. I mean, we only use the .30 calibre round in machine guns and sniper rifles, but you have it in _assault rifles. _Same for the .50 cal. There's only a few pistols on my world that use it, and they pretty much fuck your wrist up firing it.'

Scott looked down at the magnum on his thigh, then at the one Lisa had scavenged for me hanging off my leg in a makeshift holster.

'You guys managed to reduce the recoil to something barely noticeable.'

'How many years did the Fallout world have to advance their armour systems and weapons?' Scott asked.

'Around a hundred and twenty years,' I said. 'The Great War pretty much put an end to any kind of technological advancement apart from a few isolated groups, namely the Enclave, so weapon development didn't really go anywhere and they were left with whatever survived the war.'

I shook my head. 'A lot of people couldn't quite grasp the fact that an armour system from a time where the main round used was a 7.62mm and needed to be able to fend off repeated impacts would be almost invulnerable in a time where its main round had around half the energy.'

'Maybe they weren't aware,' Scott said. 'Did you expect them all to know the ballistic performances of both rounds?'

I shrugged. 'Dunno. I just wrote what I expected to happen if both universes collided and had real physics applied. Not my fault some people think what happens in the game will happen in real life. If that were true, then the same 5.56mm round fired by the Infiltrator can somehow have better performance in the nearly identical Perforator.'

Scott looked down at me again.

'They're silenced assault rifles in the Fallout world,' I said. 'The Perforator is the unique version of the Infiltrator.'

'Different barrel lengths can provide different muzzle velocities,' Scott said but I shook my head.

'Both weapons are visually identical, no chance of a longer barrel on one or the other. Same for the All-American and the marksman carbine. Same round, same overall appearance, different damage output.'

'That's the rifle Hullum won from Heyman,' Scott, recognising the name.

'Yup,' I said, nodding. 'It had a higher rate of fire and a slightly higher damage per shot than the base model. Never could figure out how to explain that away in terms of real life.'

We came across a stream that came up to just below Scott and Lisa's knees, about level with Michael's, and halfway up my thighs. And it was cold.

I scurried up the opposite bank, swearing, and shook my legs out.

'Why couldn't I have sent at least one of you up against ODSTs or something?' I snarled, hearing my boots squelch with every step. 'Why couldn't I have done that? Then at least I'd have armour that didn't let water in.'

'You're not that bright?' Michael said as he passed by, laughing slightly.

'Asshole,' I said, the frustration of the past few days and minimal sleep making me glare Longswords at him.

Michael shrugged. 'I'm still a long way from even competing with what you did to me. You don't have the right to call me anything but sir.'

I kept glaring at him, suddenly wanting to drive my fist into his unarmoured face.

'Fuck,' I muttered, shaking my legs out again.

I looked at my boots, thinking about the possibility of trench foot if I didn't dry them off quickly and change my socks, and angled for a nearby tree stump.

'What are you doing?' Michael said, seeing me sit down. 'We've got a long way to go and Scotty didn't call for a break.'

Scott looked at Michael with some unknown expression as I began undoing my boots.

'My feet are sodden,' I said. 'I need to change my socks and drain my boots of water as best I can. Otherwise, I'll run the risk of developing trench foot or something and then you'll have to carry me the rest of the way.' I looked at Michael. 'Then it'll really feel like a long way.'

I shrugged my rucksack off and started going through it, looking for a fresh pair of socks. I'd already swapped them twice since setting off, washing the worn ones in any stream we happened to pass by, and I glanced up to see Lisa walking over to pick up the ones I'd just worn and went to the stream they'd been soaked in, rinsing them out in the icy cold water.

'Thanks,' I said as she placed them on top of my rucksack.

Lisa just nodded back, standing a ways off.

Within a few minutes, my clean and dry socks were in place and I slipped my muddy and wet boots on, the dryness of my socks not lasting long, and I made a mental note that when we stopped for the night to dry my boots out over a fire.

Light discipline wasn't being observed.

No matter how well we camouflaged our position, the enemy seemed to know exactly where we were so the Spartans had since stopped masking our presence, building up a fire to keep me warm and throw out some light for me to see by. They had augmented eyesight, I had glasses on.

Not exactly the best thing for night time fighting.

My feet still squelched with each step but it wasn't as bad as before and they didn't feel as heavy.

Still, I had shit load of weight on my back, I was wearing uncomfortable armour, and I was walking on unforgiving terrain with no discernible path.

To say I wasn't happy with my current situation would be a massive understatement.

**The Everfree Forest**

Our camp for the night was built around a small copse of trees packed tightly enough to offer some decent cover from rifle fire but spread out enough so that they we could move about freely.

Within a few minutes, a fire was lit and my boots were drying off above it while I got some much needed sleep, as did Michael and Scott while Lisa kept watch, the litter from our MREs chucked onto the fire.

It felt like only a few minutes had passed before Michael roughly shoved me awake, kicking with an armoured boot.

'Trouble incoming,' he said, looking down at me. 'Get your ass up and ready.'

I somehow managed to sigh, yawn, and groan with a single breath, rubbing sleep from my eyes as Scott added more wood to the fire, stoking it up, then took position covering his quadrant.

The attacks could come from any direction, either a head-on assault from a single direction or from all sides at once. Each wave usually followed the same path as the previous one so once the first group was eliminated we repositioned ourselves to better counter the rest.

I grabbed my assault rifle and crouched next to a thick tree, looking out into the forest.

Most of the heat was directed at Scott and the others, leaving me with very little to deal with, but I got the occasional stray who scurried to cover when I fired.

So far I hadn't killed anything and I wondered how long that would last. I wondered what I'd feel when I did.

'NCR,' Scott warned as the usual hour came and went. 'No sign of the Rangers, just troopers. M30, centre of mass. Only fire if you feel you can hit the target, call out any grenades.'

'Yes, sir,' I said, scanning the forest for movement. The khaki brown of the NCR armour would show up nicely against the green forest floor. I hoped.

'Movement,' Lisa said. 'Range two hundred.'

'Weapons free,' Scott said. 'Engage at your own discretion.'

Rifle fire soon ripped through the forest, the suppressed coughs from Lisa and Michael, the thunderous roar from me and Scott, as soldiers of the New California Republic appeared as if from thin air, their own rifles up and firing.

I briefly wondered why Scott and Lisa went through the whole announcing targets and giving permission to engage thing. The only things out here were us and a load of hostiles. Surely they could just say they saw the enemy and begin firing, or just fire.

The gunshots would no doubt alert us to something being amiss.

I shrugged, yawned, and fired a brief burst as a three-man team of troopers came closer. They scattered and crabbed sideways. I fired again and saw one go down.

Had I killed him?

Any further thought or examination was postponed as a bullet slammed into the tree barely a foot over my head and showered me with bits of bark and splinters, and I aimed my rifle in the vague direction it came from.

The soldier who had fired at me went down, didn't get back up, and was replaced by another.

My body reacted and another burst was fired, and another, and another, until the bolt cycled open and I reloaded, dropping the magazine twice.

The process started all over again and I fell into a kind of rhythm.

See target, bring barrel to bear, fire, repeat. The monotony was only broken up when I reloaded.

Target. Aim. Fire. Reload.

Target. Aim. Fire. Reload.

Target. Aim. Fire. Reload.

**The Everfree Forest**

When the last enemy vanished, I didn't fall asleep. I didn't sit back against the tree I was leaning on and breathe a sigh of relief. I kept my gaze fixed on the forest floor before me.

Twenty-nine.

That's how many people I'd killed that night. Twenty-nine people, a mixture of the NCR, Talon Company, and the Legion. It seemed anon had given us a Scott-centred night of action and now that it was over, their bodies lay in a rough circle surrounding our little base.

I was out of ammo for my MA5, having only a quarter of a magazine left, so I discarded it.

Behind me, Scott and Lisa got up to scour the dead for any possible supplies they had. Grenades, bandages, painkillers, anything to keep me going, really. They didn't need anything with their fancy armour.

Michael had sacked out against his tree, rifle clutched loosely in his arms.

I could hear him muttering in his sleep.

'No, don't... don't go! Luna...' he whimpered. 'Don't leave. I... We... I love you.'

Part of me felt bad for him, having nightmares like that. I'd caused them, made him suffer hardship after hardship, and for what?

I didn't know, not in my current state. I was tired, hungry, and mentally numb after last night.

I stood and headed out into the forest, visiting each of the corpses that I'd made.

They mostly had chest wounds, barely clustered together, with the occasional headshot from when I got lucky by accident.

I stared at each body for the longest time, trying to comprehend everything.

They were dead. I'd killed them. I'd killed another human being.

'You okay?' Lisa asked from behind me.

I didn't flinch in surprise or turn to look at her. I kept staring at the body.

'They're dead,' I said.

'And you aren't,' Lisa said. 'Focus on that.'

'I killed them,' I said.

The Spartan said nothing and the next thing I knew, she was standing next to me, observing the scene.

'Not bad to say you've only held a rifle for three days,' she said. 'Twenty-nine confirmed kills from a range of fifty metres with no iron sights. Most trainee Marines would struggle to do that.'

'Is that supposed to make me feel better?' I asked, looking up at Lisa.

She shrugged. 'No.' She placed a hand on my shoulder. 'Come on, get some rest. You had a long night.'

I looked at the hand then at the battlefield.

'I need another weapon,' I said. 'I'm out of ammo for the MA5.'

'I'll sort something out,' Lisa said, guiding me back to the camp. 'But you need to sleep.'

I sat down by the tree I'd used as cover, absently counting the number of bullet holes marring the gnarled surface. I stopped when I reached one hundred and leant back, staring up at the leafy canopy above.

I closed my eyes, trying to go to sleep, but I kept seeing those twenty-nine soldiers falling to the ground over and over again in perfect, enhanced detail. A second where they remained upright, a growing pool of crimson expanding from the wound, then a slow fall to the ground, their faces contorted in pain and shock.

Then I saw the bullet holes in the trees surrounding my position, some no more than a few scant inches from where I had been crouched, and tried not to imagine what would have happened it just one of those bullets had found its mark.

The enormity of what happened barely half an hour ago began sinking in and I started to shake violently, suddenly feeling cold, and I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth, comfort, anything, as the tears began flowing from eyes.

No one came to console me.


End file.
